


The Beautiful Things We Dream Of

by inadistantworld



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dissociation, F/M, Happy Ending, Pet Names, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 01:55:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13377660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inadistantworld/pseuds/inadistantworld
Summary: The first time she called him darling he knew he was dreaming. He knew it wasn't real. But that didn't change the fact that she was the most beautiful and wonderful part of that dream.Or a handful of times Vex called Percy darling.





	The Beautiful Things We Dream Of

**Author's Note:**

> Like two hours ago I saw a gif of Vex calling Percy darling and it made me think about the first time she called him that and how he would have reacted, given that he thought he was imagining it all, which lead to other pre-stream times she might have called him darling, which led to this little thing I guess.

“Come now, darling, we don’t bite.” She said it with a charming smile, a flash in her eyes like she was daring him. But despite the grin and the dangerous glint in her eye and the fact that he had watched them just kill a guard, despite everything, underneath the blood and the mask (yes, he could see it was a mask, he was quite familiar with masks) there was a softness. He could see how she was looking at him. Like she was afraid to spook him. She looked at him like she didn’t want him to disappear.

She was the most beautiful thing he had seen in years. Strike that, she was the most beautiful person he’d seen in his life. Ever. Which was just another obvious sign that he was right about his suspicions that none of this was real and he was in fact locked away in another dungeon rocking back and forth and trying to bury himself in this fantasy. Trying to lose himself in a dream haze with the most beautiful person he’d ever seen who looked at him like she cared and with people behind her who looked…odd but like they were just as good as her, which was far better than him.

And she called him _darling_. She said it so lightly too, like the word was a feather. Like it was something said often to him. Like it was obvious. She said it without any of the weight he felt when he heard it. It nearly broke him then. _Darling_. His mother called his father darling. And him. His mother had called him darling too. The word simply took his breath away, whatever she didn’t take to begin with.

 _Darling._ He couldn’t remember if he’d told her his name already or if she told him hers. By the way everyone behind her was looking at him he doubted he said his name. The redhead looked like she was all nerves, she even started to step forward and open her mouth, but a large gray hand touched her shoulder and stopped her. The goliath shook his head and nodded to the woman with the bow slung across her back, as if to say let her handle this. The third half-elf, the one who looked like Darling, leaned in and whispered something to the redhead who chewed her bottom lip but stepped back.

And Percy was suddenly aware of how he must look. His hair overgrown and at this point might be dirty enough that it was back to its original brown, his clothes had more holes than fabric, half starved, unmoving, unspeaking. His eyes were wide, the left lens of his glasses was cracked, and he looked like he was ready to bolt if anyone moved too suddenly. Maybe he would.

He straightened up and stepped over the guard’s body to the chest where his things were. Inside was a belt with his gun, a long gray travelling cloak (which he decided to leave, it was beyond saving at this point he finally realized), and his purse. He put his belt back on, made sure his gun was still loaded, and then walked back to the woman.

He held his purse out to her and with a voice that scratched his throat and, while not cracking completely, was fractured said, “Thank you.”

 

“Thank you darling.” It had been a few months and still she was the most beautiful part of his dream. All of the adventuring he’d dreamt of, all of the gold and magic and travelling he fooled himself into believing and she was still the best figment of his imagination.

“Of course,” Percy smiled and adjusted his glasses, the lens long since replaced.

She sighed happily and drank from the mug. He had paid for this round from his personal funds. After all, they were the ones who kept fighting when he fell unconscious, he felt he owed them something.

Or everything, though perhaps for more than just that fight.

She still called him darling like that. He had of course discovered that many people were “darling”. And he didn’t fool himself into thinking that she looked at him differently when she said it to him, but he noticed every time she called him that. She didn’t even know his full name and she called him that.

 

“Darling,” she laughed breathlessly, “that is the longest name I’ve ever heard!”

Percy stood by the fire, his hands shaking and his body stiff with tension. It had taken a very long time but he had finally told them who he was, his name at least. De Rolo. They didn’t recognize it or ask him why he had left, but they did laugh. And that…almost put Percy at ease. They wouldn’t pressure him if he didn’t want to talk, and it wasn’t such a terrible thing if they could laugh.

“It’s tradition!” Percy straightened his jacket and forced the smile back, he had a reputation to uphold even in his dreams.

 

“Dear, could I have a few pieces of gold?” The word almost shocks him out of the haze. If it were real he might have felt embarrassed by it, but odd things are easier in dreams, he was more aware of that than most.

Vex didn’t question what he needed it for, or if she did he explained it without thinking because he was far too busy thinking about what he said. “Dear.” His father called his mother that, didn’t he? It would make sense. He was pulling the dream from his experiences. Darling and dear, what his parents had called each other so long ago.

Or perhaps he’s heard it from other places. Wherever he picked it up, it was dangerous. It was too soft, too familiar. He couldn’t afford to feel like that about her. He wasn’t good enough for her, not in the way she needed him to be. He was handsome, sure, he was smart, he had the name if nothing else, but she needed someone with a heart his couldn’t match.

He was still rambling on in his thoughts about dear and how the dream had gone too far when she pressed the few cold coins into his palm and joked about him spending it all in one place. He’s wasn’t even sure she noticed.

 

“Darling, take the mask off.”

His head was pounding, he was foggy, he was angry, he was cruel, he was terrible. He could feel the shadows crawling over him and he could feel how awful he was. He felt dangerous. He felt unstoppable.

But Vex was looking at him like she did the first day they met. With careful eyes, afraid to scare him off, slowly reaching to take his hand. Looking at him like she didn’t want to lose him.

“Darling,” she had called him.

 

“That’s for me?” He held the arrow out to her with hands that barely trembled. She was normally so observant but the wide eyes and shocked smile made him confident that she hadn’t noticed his nerves this time.

“Yes. Be careful with it though, it does explode,” he said as she took it. It was a less terrible idea than it used to be. He was less horrible. Less dangerous. And Vex had always been someone who could take care of herself. But now that Orthax was gone he felt…less guilty about this kind of thing.

He watched her gingerly put it in her quiver and look back at him with bright eyes. “I love it.”

He smiled back, “Kill something big with it, won’t you dear?”

 

The first time she joined him in his workshop to actually _help_ seemed selfish at first. She was there to oversee the work on her new broom and was willing to put in a little work to speed it up if she could. It became obvious fairly quickly that the broom wasn’t the only thing she was there for.

She watched his hands with an intensity that his younger self would have admired. She asked what the names of tools were, what they did. She asked about things he made as a child, books he read when he was learning, and if he had a teacher. She wasn’t getting in the way and with an eagerness that rivaled Keyleth’s she helped in any ways she could. And at the end, when Vex was holding her broom and admiring it, Percy said, “You’re quite good at this. We should do this again.”

Vex looked up with a bright smile and eager eyes, obviously proud to hear him say so. “I would love that!” And he believed her.

“Yes this was…actually agreeable.” They both laughed and looked away, Percy to his table and Vex to her broom.

“Well, I should go now. Thank you again for this,” she gestured to the tether on the broom, “I’ll see you tomorrow darling.”

“Of course, dear.”

 

Even knowing it wasn’t real, Percy chased the feeling. He did what he could to hold back, he didn’t say the words out loud, but he did give her gifts, gave her a title, told her she looked lovely, told her she was already better than people she was striving to be like. Percy, despite knowing the truth, couldn’t stop himself from her most of the time. The only thing he managed to do was to keep from making it known.

Until he heard her. He thought he was finally dying, or perhaps that he was coming out of the dream. And then he heard her calling him back. For half a second he was torn. If he was dying he could be free. This wouldn’t be a bad way to go. And if he was coming out of his dream, back to the real world…if things weren’t better maybe he could actually try to escape or something.

“I should have told you…it’s yours.”

And he made his decision. He would live in this world forever. It was worth living in this world forever, trying to be a better person even if it wasn’t real, trying to be good enough even if he couldn’t be, it was worth living in a dream if he was living in a dream with her.

 

It was years after they killed Vecna when he was finished. He had one of their daughters on his shoulders, another was holding his hand. She was holding their son as they walked through the town and she was pregnant again. Percy hoped it was another girl, Vex said it would be twins and he didn’t even try to hide his excitement.

And the five of them, almost seven, were standing in front of the sixth, almost eighth, most beautiful thing in his life. It went his wife, his children, his sister, and then this, his clock tower. Featuring bears of course, but also so many other things. He had poured his life into this. His contract was with Pike, his guns were nearby when he needed them but he didn’t even have one on him now, his workshop was filled with clock pieces and he didn’t feel the need to destroy his sketches when he was done with them anymore. He was living a life he couldn’t have dreamed of.

The thought stuck in his chest.

“Darling,” Vex breathed, “it’s beautiful.”

It had happened a handful of times. The first being when Vex told him they would be the glue, when he had admitted he still hurt from the loss of his family, that he had once wanted to be a clock maker. It had all felt real then. It faded but the realness settled back in at the birth of their first set of twins. It had stayed for a while before it left again. And when Percival the Fourth was born it almost stuck. But now, in this moment, with a life even his wild imagination couldn’t have dreamed of, with his wife and his children and children to be and the clocktower he built…it was striking how real it all was. And for the last time Percy knew that he wasn’t dreaming, that this was a real life he was living with the most beautiful family he could have, in the city he helped rescue and revive, and with the clocktower he made.

And, because it was a monumental realization and it was so obviously the last time he would need to be reminded of it, Percy wept.

And he lived the rest of his life with the woman who called him darling and never doubted if this was real again.


End file.
